More than a month into the Major League Baseball offseason, the Twins can finally give a more definitive answer to teams calling about Joe Ryan, Pablo López and Byron Buxton in trade talks.
The Twins don’t intend to tear their roster down further, increasing the likelihood that their top players will remain on the roster entering the 2026 season, one club official told the Minnesota Star Tribune on Friday.
Derek Falvey, the Twins president, and General Manager Jeremy Zoll are expected to reinforce that message when they speak to reporters at the MLB winter meetings in Orlando next week.
Payroll is still expected to drop, perhaps dramatically, from the past few seasons. The Twins entered the 2025 season with an American League Central-high $142.8 million payroll, according to figures from the Associated Press, and ended the season in the $130 million range after a massive 11-player trade deadline fire sale. Their current roster carries an estimated $95 million payroll, and it’s unknown how much it will rise.
Throughout the first month of the offseason, Falvey said he wanted to add to the club, though ownership’s payroll uncertainty hovered over his comments.
“Our focus, my goal, is to try and add around the group we already have,” Falvey said last month at the general managers meetings. “We think our starting pitching is the strength of this team. We know Pablo and Joe have been real anchors for us over the last couple of years when healthy.
“Ultimately, to have Bailey Ober coming back in a healthy spot and all of the young pitching we’ve acquired to join guys like Zebby [Matthews], Simeon [Woods Richardson] and David Festa, we like that group. We think that’s a group hopefully we can build around.”
The Pohlad family announced in August that the team was no longer for sale, and it was adding two minority investor groups to help pay the team’s near $500 million debt. Those minority investors remain unidentified four months later.
